Cooper: Ramsey's Portas never had a chance

Ramsey High School students, parents, coaches showed support for hockey coach Dean Portas during the May 9, 2017, school board meeting. Portas has been told his contract was not renewed.
Tom Nobile/NorthJersey.com

And when a Board of Education is out for your coaching job, it’s done.

Ramsey coach Dean Portas is an excellent coach, by any measure. Heck, he won a state championship – not a sectional title, not a league – the real deal state championship with the Ramsey ice hockey program two years ago.

It was, by the way, his first year at the helm of the program.

Now he finds himself in limbo, basically out of the job with Ramsey, apparently, insiders say, at the behest of Ramsey Board of Education President Anthony Gasparovich, whose son played for the Rams briefly this winter.

By now, you know all the details. The son sending a text to the team after he left the program, explaining that he had feelings "changes would be coming" next year and he’d get back to them lickety-split.

But here’s the other part you may not like, but have to believe.

It’s done. It’s over. Portas has not been rehired, and I bet he won’t ever coach at Ramsey again.

You know why I think this? Because this kind of thing happens all the time. Dean Portas is just the latest Bill Weigel in Paramus, who is the latest Dan Kilday in Tenafly, who is the latest Brian O’Connor at Wayne Valley who was the latest Dennis Rossi at Northern Valley/Old Tappan, who was the latest Joe Yurko of Westwood ... the list goes on and on.

This past year in Paramus, Weigel was left to twist in the wind by his athletic department and Board of Education. There was a Harrassment, Intimidation and Bullying charge made against him by an assistant coach on the football staff. The Board of Education overturned the charge, but then opened up the search for a new football coach.

Enraged Paramus parents flocked to the Board of Education meetings for months demanding Weigel to be retained. But in the end, what’s done is done. Weigel is out. Paramus hired Joe Sabella as new football coach.

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You see, the Boards of Education have all the power here. When parents complain, the board members just look on with blank expressions. When asked why they can’t talk, they merely say it’s a personnel issue or they go into "closed session" outside of public earshot to discuss the matter.

This is their right by law to do so. And they also know that over time, the furor will die down. Parents aren’t still showing up at Paramus Board of Education meetings to talk about the football job. The Board of Education is undefeated.

The same thing is happening in a less publicized case in Tenafly where athletic director Dan Kilday, well regarded throughout the North Jersey athletics community, saw his contract not renewed. Kilday’s only crime appears to be not being willing to play politics in town. The same thing is happening in Montclair, where another respected athletic director, Jeff Gannon, is not being retained by the Board of Education in the name of budget cuts.

In 2014, the same thing happened to Brian O’Connor, the football coach at Wayne Valley. After 11 seasons with the Indians, O’Connor saw his contract not renewed. He started the program’s Hall of Fame, he helped send at least one player to the NFL (Chris Pantale).

How did we get to this point? A lot of coaches and athletic directors point to the fact that Superintendents no longer wield the same authority they once did. Education budget cuts have reduced the number of tenured positions. In other words, no one wants to stand up anymore for what is right. Everyone is always only looking out for themselves.

It’s happening on a grander scale in high school athletics, the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association has made two sweeping changes lately to its system, first separating public and non-public schools for football, then, adjusting its transfer rule to make it so kids sit 30 days without many exceptions.

Both of these rules were overturned by the Commissioner of Education at the time, which begs the question, what were all the hours and committee meetings for if the Commissioner was just going to say no anyway?

That’s what’s happening here. The Ramsey Board President, for reasons we can all easily decipher, wanted Portas out. The good news is some other school is going to get a heck of a hockey coach pretty soon.

Whether Gasparovich’s case is viable or not doesn’t really matter. He wins. Boards of Education remain undefeated. Common sense, kindness and accountability take the loss.